Ronald Erwin McNair (October 21, 1950 – January 28, 1986) was an American NASA astronaut and physicist, and a member of the Bahá’í Faith. He died during the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51-L, in which he was serving as one of three mission specialists in a crew of seven. In 1976,…
Gladys West is an American mathematician who is known for her contributions to the mathematical modeling of the shape of the Earth, and her work on the development of satellite geodesy models, that were later incorporated into the Global Positioning System (GPS). She was inducted into the United States Air Force Hall of Fame in…
This is an important statement, but is it true? Let’s dig into the details of why this might be the case. First of all surveys or polling employ a sample size too small to fairly represent the 331 million citizens of the United States. Many polls use a sample size of 1,000 people, however, this…
Dr. Magdalene M. Carney was a writer, a Civil Rights advocate, a Bahá’í, and first and foremost, an educator. She was known and loved for her many excellent qualities and especially for her wholehearted commitment to the education of children and youth and to the Bahá’í Faith. Mag, as her friends called her, was the…
Born in 1877 in Raleigh, North Carolina to two formerly enslaved parents, Mary Brown Martin brought hope to young black students and enjoyed tutoring young immigrants who needed help learning English. In the 1920s, she taught in the Cleveland Public Schools system, and during her free time, she was actively involved in the women’s suffrage movement….
A wet purse was discovered at the seaside in January of 1954. The woman who had been carrying the bag was on a flight from Rome to London. Two days earlier, the jet had crashed into the water, killing every person on board. There was a booklet about the Bahá’i Faith inside the purse. A…
Martha Root was different from other girls even as a little child. She enjoyed reading and had little interest in cooking, knitting, or sewing. She briefly worked in education before pursuing her life’s work as a journalist. Martha’s first post was in Union City, Pennsylvania while she was teacher and high school principal. She also…
Mildred Root Mottahedeh was a collector of Chinese export porcelains and a co-founder of a business that created porcelain replicas for various US presidents and organizations, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. An American Bahá’í who served as the first representative of the Bahá’í community at the United Nations, an Auxiliary Board member, and as…
In 1862, at the young age of 19, Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson wed George Hearst, a very successful miner who subsequently rose to the position of U.S. Senator. They had one child, William Randolph Hearst. Phoebe rose to prominence in the 1880s, serving as the first president of the Century Club of California as well as…
“You must serve as my flag and wave it in both the East and the West.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said this to Lua Getsinger, when she visited Him as a member of the very first Baha’i pilgrimage from America to now Israel in 1898. Why use the word flag? Becuase the Persian word “lua” means “flag.” Born…
